Dow Jones rises 654 points

Wall Street’s three major indexes ended the week in impressive fashion with gains of more than 1%, with the industrial index jumping 654 points.

The star of the day was industrial giant 3M, which jumped 23% and posted its best daily performance since 1972.

Investors took a positive view of the data on the top indicator of personal consumption expenditures in the United States, which the country’s central bank is closely watching and is effectively “locking in” interest rate cuts in September.

At the end of the meeting, The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.64%, or 654 points, to 40,589, the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.03%, or 176 points, to close at 17,357, and the S&P 500 rose 1.11% to 5,459.

However, today’s performance was not enough for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to avoid the negative signal and they recorded losses of 0.83% and 2.08% respectively. The Dow Jones recorded a weekly gain of 0.75%.

The market-expected marginal slowdown but the structural component remained unchanged was reflected in the US Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index. In particular, the structural component of the index, which excludes volatile energy and food prices that the Fed focuses on, recorded an annual growth rate of 2.6% in June, the same as the previous month, defying analysts’ average estimates of a slight decline to 2.5%.

On a monthly basis, the core PCE index rose 0.2%, marginally higher than 0.1% in May, confirming market expectations. On the headline level, the PCE index slowed marginally to 2.5% on an annual basis from 2.6% in May, as analysts had expected.
The two-day policy-making committee meeting begins next week, but no rate cuts are expected.

Analysts say this week’s volatility is due to seller pressure on large-cap companies that has dragged down the broader market.

In corporate news, Dexcom stock fell 40% after posting disappointing full-year guidance, while Deckers, up 18%, rose 6.3% as the shoe company posted first-quarter earnings and revenue that beat analysts’ estimates.

We are in a period of financial results announcements where analysts indicate that they are able to influence the path of indicators on dashboards.

Of the 206 S&P 500 companies that have reported second-quarter earnings so far, 78.6% have topped analysts’ expectations.